Primitive. Part 27

"I hope not." She checked the dressing, which I noticed for the first time was more complete and enveloped my entire upper arm. A smaller dressing also covered the wound on my right shoulder. "You've suffered considerable tissue damage and muscle loss to your arm. Thanks to Tracy's quick action, gangrene never set in. But human bites are nasty, as I'm sure you've heard. And the fact that a primitive bit you...well, who knows what kind of bacteria they carry."

As the days progressed and I lay in bed recuperating, I got updates from everybody. Wesley. Martin. Tracy and Emily were at my side constantly. I met Tim, finally, and liked him. I took him to be ten years younger than I, slight of build and scholarly in appearance, like he could have been a research geek at some university in a past life. It was Tim who told me that it appeared the nuclear strikes were having an effect. "Hanbi's ability to possess his followers and reanimate the dead seems to be gone," he said. "One of our resources reported that a cult they've been monitoring survived the blast due to their far proximity to the nearest strike. They've been performing rituals almost non-stop and Hanbi had visited them constantly before, but he's been absent since the blasts. Apparently they appear quite upset at this. He said they've been very agitated."

Martin told me the military was being rea.s.sembled from a wide range of volunteers from all over the country. Rag-tag teams of militias were already on their own frontal a.s.saults against the primitives around the country, both in large cities and in outlying rural areas. And Wesley told me that the remaining vestiges of the US government had called an emergency session to order, the first since the vast outbreak of the Havoc Virus. "We still have martial law," Wesley told me three days after I regained consciousness. Once again I had a fever, and Dr. Bush had wanted to give me a sedative but I'd insisted on talking to Wesley before I succ.u.mbed to Morpheus. "And things are still pretty G.o.dd.a.m.n crazy out there. But the more primitives we kill, the weaker Hanbi is becoming. The primitives aren't as strong or organized. It's almost like in the beginning stages of the virus when they were running around like those G.o.dd.a.m.ned monkeys. It's like they're lost and confused."

"They no longer have Hanbi to guide them," I said.

"Exactly." He nodded. Smiled. "You're gonna get better, my friend. You've got a h.e.l.l of a woman who loves you, and your little girl, Emily..." His voice broke off for a moment and he looked reflective. Was he thinking of his own lost family? His son, who was probably dead? He had to be. "...she's a remarkable little girl. She's going to be a very important person in the future. You should be proud of her."

"I am," I said.

"Hang in there," Wesley said. "Get some rest. Get better."

"I will."

Wesley looked at me for a moment, his features reflective, a tinge of sadness in them, and then he left the room.

I thought about that sadness and wondered if he knew something. I wondered if I wasn't being told everything. What was wrong?

I didn't worry about it that much. Sleep overcame me quickly.

The next few times I was awake I only remember s.n.a.t.c.hes of consciousness. It was the infection.

It had spread.

I remember coming awake the first time to see Tracy and Emily standing by me. Tracy was crying. Emily wasn't crying, but she looked sad. She noticed the change in my eyes as I regained clarity briefly and told me she loved me. Then I went under again.

Over the next few days, whenever I came out of it briefly, I saw similar scenes. Dr. Bush was present at times, along with Martin and Wesley, sometimes Tim. After awhile their voices swirled together, creating a kaleidoscope of blurred images and voices.

"...getting worse..."

"...has to be something you can..."

"...settled in him..."

"...needs proper medical attention..."

"...Daddy..."

My eyes focused on Emily, who was hovering over me, her little face worried and sad. "Daddy, I'll always be with you."

I tried to say something and went under again.

Dr. Bush told me a day after I came back from that last scare that my blood infection had spread into my lymph nodes. She'd sent Sgt. Lynn Ryder and Scott Owen into Lawrence to raid a hospital for more equipment and drugs. "I've instructed them to bring me everything in the pharmacy," she said. Tracy and Emily were at my bedside. For the first time, Dr. Bush looked worried, but she hid it well. "Once they get back I'll find the right antibiotics we need and we can start administering them so you can begin fighting this thing."

For the first time I was afraid to ask her if I would be all right. I didn't want to hear what she'd have to say.

Especially in front of Emily and Tracy.

Besides, I had a feeling they already knew.

Then again...perhaps the constant worried expressions...their looks of sadness, of grief, was simply a sign of the stress and the pain of living through everything we've been through.

Besides, I felt better.

Emily certainly warmed up to me as I talked to my family. Even Tracy seemed to come out of her funk. They sat on the side of my bed and told me the latest news: that a small army of militias and surviving members of the 18th Brigade near Forth Worth had gone into Dallas and exterminated thousands of primitives using conventional weaponry: high powered rifles, machine guns, tanks, flame throwers. Leaflets and public access messages had been broadcast over loudspeakers warning those that were not affected by the Havoc Virus to evacuate immediately. Those who were left had done so. The army rescued a handful of people as they moved in.

The caravan of psychos we'd heard about from Stuart, who had been raping and pillaging their way west finally met their match courtesy of the National Guard near Jonesboro, Arkansas. The ensuing firefight left most of them dead, with only three Guardsmen suffering fatalities. The surviving psychos were rounded up and formally arrested.

It felt good to hear that. Arrested. It meant our own guys were following the rule of the land. The line of legal and social code that had been laid down by those who originally formed our system of government. I could only hope that people in other countries were doing the same, that elsewhere things hadn't slipped into even deeper anarchy.

It was at this time when I ffinally decided to resume the work I had begun so long ago, in that abandoned Mexican restaurant in Gra.s.s Valley, California: the doc.u.mentation of our ordeal.

I brought this up to Tracy a few nights later, during dinner. Lynn and Scott had returned from Lawrence and Dr. Bush had administered the first of several antibiotics to me via IV drip shortly after. The drugs made me woozy occasionally, but so far so good. My appet.i.te was coming back, and Dr. Bush said that was a good sign. Tracy helped me walk across the room to use the bathroom for the first time-another good sign. There was still that underlying sense of tension everybody had, as if they felt I wasn't entirely out of the woods yet, but I could live with that. I won't feel one hundred percent better until I'm running around and playing with my daughter, but for now I'm okay. Which is why I felt, as I explained to Tracy, I should continue this memoir now.

Tracy thought about it for a moment. "Your laptop is in our room," she said. "I can bring it down, give you an hour a day to start."

"An hour a day would be great," I said.

Tracy smiled. It was the first time I'd seen her smile since...well, since this whole thing started. Maybe that was a sign things were getting better. "I guess if you feel good enough to write, maybe you are out of the woods."

"Of course I am," I said.

Emily came into the room, running excitedly. "Daddy! Daddy!"

"Hey! Come here, you!" I held my right arm out; my left was still bandaged up and somewhat immobile.

Emily leaped onto the bed and carefully crawled over to me so I could hug her. "I love you, Daddy!"

"I love you, too." I hugged her, kissed the top of her head. I looked at Tracy. "And I love you too, baby."

Tracy's smile widened. "That goes double for me, David."

I felt good. I felt happy. And for the first time since this all began, I felt safe.

I felt we might have some sense of a future.

I felt we might have a chance of surviving this. Of building something new together. Of contributing to the rebuilding of society into something better than what was destroyed.

Most of all, and more important to me, I had my life and my family.

And I was determined to not let them go. I'd made those vows years ago, when Tracy and I first got together, back when Eric was a baby, before Emily was even born.

I'd kept those vows. Us being here, in this fortress beneath the ground, was proof.

I was going to hold on to them.

Or die trying.

AFTERWORD.

What you've just read is my father's version of what happened to our little corner of the world thirty years ago, when human civilization almost ended.

As I write this, the world has yet to return to the state it was in when the Havoc Virus was unleashed. Perhaps it never will. Much of my education during my formative years was watching hours of old video footage of that former world. Movies, TV shows, home movies rescued from the many legions of the dead who'd died leaving their belongings for archeologists to recover as a way of preservation and educating those-like myself-who came of age after the near fall of civilization.

Shortly after my father finished this narrative, he succ.u.mbed to the blood poisoning that was ravaging his system. From what I remember he went very peacefully, in his sleep, surrounded by those who loved him in his last days-my mother and I, Wesley Smitts, and Martin Hernandez. Dr. Bush did all she could to save him, enlisting the help of a hematologist she met via radio communication (who was broadcasting from Switzerland), but ultimately failed. Daddy's death affected her in a way I didn't understand as a child.

Martin helped my mother raise me, and he proved to be a wonderful surrogate father. n.o.body could replace the real father I'd lost, but Martin came very close. He lived with my mother (platonically, of course; Martin never took on another life partner after losing Jerry Horn as described in my father's narrative) until I turned eighteen and went to the University of Colorado in Denver, which was one of the ten universities that were resurrected in the decade following the near crash. By then, of course, Mom and Martin were involved in key positions in the rebuilding of the world, a process that is still ongoing and will likely continue until I am well into my sunset years. Regardless, Daddy's pa.s.sion for life and his determination to live, his single-minded goal of staying alive and preserving our lives was a huge influence on them, one that shapes the decisions they make in their respective roles in our current government. Likewise, it has influenced my own research and the wisdom I impart on my students.

As for myself...I foretold my father's pa.s.sing the day we arrived at the missile silo. I saw it the moment I saw that he was injured, had been bitten by the primitive. I saw the infection spread through his body, saw visions of his illness and eventual death.

I saw a black cloud envelop my father.

I knew, even then, that the black cloud represented death.

I was four years old, would turn five a month later, and as most toddlers are wont to do, I told my mother. She didn't take the news well. I didn't either, to tell you the truth. But from what I remember, it enabled me to prepare emotionally for my father's death. I think it helped my mother, too. Getting confirmation from Dr. Bush that Daddy's illness would probably prove fatal helped us deal with it mentally, emotionally. When I read those last few pages of my father's account, I can't help but feel both sad and proud that he had an idea, an inkling that he was aware that I knew something bad was around the corner, something so horrible that we were afraid to tell him. I think maybe his gift of precognition was a little stronger than normal as well. I'd like to think so, that I'd inherited this gift from him. My mother says that my father always read people well, and that he'd probably sensed I predicted the end for him, but was too proud to ask any of us. He'd accepted it, found the strength somehow to fight and, when he was well enough, went to work at writing down this narrative.

Therefore, it gives me extreme pleasure to be able to write the Afterword to this memoir, the first book publication that depicts a personal view of the Havoc Virus and its aftermath. We're lucky to have this book. We're lucky to have the reemergence of the book publishing industry, of television and motion pictures, of the banking system, of the construction industry, and much more. All are relatively young, rebuilding from the ashes of our past world, but they're flourishing and growing at incredible speed. I've written and spoken before that the state of commerce and business in the US-if not most of the former First World and some former Second and Third World countries-is like what they were in the early Victorian Age. Old systems have been brought back, refined drastically, or eliminated altogether. Once again we have a strong sense of duty. Of honor. Of courage. We have vision. It is those traits that are forging society and moving us ever forward with new ideas and a determination to not repeat the mistakes of those who came before us. If anything has taught mankind, it is that last admonition. We are all well aware of the many mistakes of the previous world. We are determined not to repeat them.

And that's why this book and others that will come after it will be so important for future generations. This is what drives me in my current work, to not only promote this notion, but also to make sure my father's words do not die in vain. What he has recounted in these pages is our grim struggle for survival. This struggle played itself out with families all across the world, and it ill.u.s.trates that even at our most primal, our most base instincts, we are still human with all of our flaws, rough edges, and brains and power for social engineering and invention. We can make a difference, as a collective voice or as a lone individual. But we have to strive for that greatness. We have to fight for it. Against all odds.

My father was a fighter. He made some tough choices. The toughest was getting us out of Pasadena, California in the days following the Havoc outbreak and getting through to my mother that we had to leave my brother, Eric, behind. I can't even begin to imagine the pain those decisions put him through. But it was his choices, his thinking process, which defined my father and influenced me in my own work.

At the end of my father's narrative he recounts his last days in the silo's infirmary. There's a brief scene where my four-year old self is sitting solemnly on his bed. I tell him I love him, and that he will always be with me.

And that is so true. My father may have died two months later, shortly after finishing his narrative, but he never left me. I see him constantly. He talks to me. I talk to him.

He tells me he's proud of me.

And I'm very proud of him.

Thank you, Daddy. For your courage. Your bravery. Your quick thinking. Your willingness to do whatever it took to save your clan-because without you, we wouldn't be where we are today. Your tenacity in the face of huge adversity saved the lives of my mother, who went on to become a US Senator, and Martin Hernandez, who became a Chief Cabinet member in the reformation of our government. It also led to Wesley Smitts being a modern day war hero. During the year after your death, Wesley led a team of soldiers into a nuclear ravaged New York City and cleaned out the last vestiges of primitives and was killed in action. It was that battle that finally tipped the scales in our favor, banishing Hanbi forever into oblivion.

Never to be seen or heard from again.

I wish you were really here with me to see all of this...but I know you're here in spirit. I feel your energy every day.

I will never lose it. I will never lose you.

I love you, Daddy. I always will.

Emily Spires, Ph.D.

Professor of Anthropology and Human History, University of Colorado, Denver.

November 15, 2037.

About The Author.

J. F. Gonzalez is the author of over a dozen novels of horror and dark suspense including Hero (with Wrath James White), Bully, The Beloved, Clickers (with Mark Williams) and Clickers II: The Next Wave (with Brian Keene). His short fiction appears regularly in various magazines and anthologies and is most recently collected in When the Darkness Falls, and The Summoning and Other Eldritch Tales. His work is occasionally optioned for film, but nothing ever gets made. He's also a screenwriter and a web designer. He lives with his family in Pennsylvania. He is currently at work on his next novel.

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